There was no fire, engine woe or medical emergency when an Air Canada Jazz flight made an unscheduled stop in western Canada late on Tuesday: the pilot diverted the jet over a beer theft.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Steve Holmes said that a passenger had stolen beer from a beverage cart and tried to flush the empty cans down the 50-seat jet's toilet to dispose of the evidence.
The flight from Vancouver to Fort McMurray, Alberta, was diverted to Kelowna, British Columbia, and police arrested the 23-year-old suds thief.
The man faces charges of causing a disturbance on an aircraft, Constable Holmes said. (AFP)
Space oddity
The RAF said a lump of metal which smashed through the roof of a house was believed to have come from space.
The 4lb object was investigated by the RAF Flight Safety Branch after it landed in the loft of Peter and Mair Welton's home, in Forester Way, Hull, in July this year.
The branch has now identified it as space debris and said it was the only incident of its kind investigated by the RAF in the last five years. (PA)
Swearing survey
Mexicans swear an average of 20 times a day, using up about 1.3 billion bad words daily.
A survey of 1,000 adults said one in 10 claimed not to swear at all. Upper-class citizens reported swearing more than the poor, while people in the heavily-Indian southern part of the country cursed less than northerners.
Those polled used their own judgment as to what constituted swearwords, but almost all were harsher than "caramba", roughly the equivalent of "Gosh!" (PA)
Tabloids duped by celebrity hoaxes
A British filmmaker duped some of the country's top tabloid newspapers into printing fake stories about celebrities, including one about Amy Winehouse's beehive hairstyle catching fire, he said yesterday.
Chris Atkins and his team put in hoax calls to some of Britain's best- known newsrooms, only to see the details printed - unchecked - in the press the next day.
Among the celebrity 'sightings' they invented was a tale about how troubled British singer Winehouse had been playing music with friends when the fuse blew and set fire to her hair.
The story appeared in two major tabloid papers, before being splashed across the internet, Mr Atkins said, adding, "We specifically wanted to see how much journalists fact-checked their stories. We made up a whole range of crazy tales of celebrity mishap and tried to see how easy it would be to get these into the tabloid press."
Mr Atkins insisted that despite being offered money for the stories, his team was never paid for their work. (AFP)
Man injured in art exhibit
A pitch-black art installation in London claimed its first victim on the opening day as a man walked straight into a wall, a report said yesterday.
"How It Is", by Polish artist Miroslaw Balka, opened to the public on Tuesday in the huge Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern gallery. More than 12,500 people visited, with one person attended to by first-aid staff.
London's Evening Standard newspaper said the man hit the back wall and was escorted away with blood on his suit and a lump on his nose before being treated by first-aid staff.
The installation is a steel box, resembling a giant shipping container. Accessed by a ramp, it measures 30 metres long, 13 metres high and 10 metres wide.
The work is lined with light-absorbing material, meaning visitors can see nothing but blackness when inside. (AFP)
Want to invest? Buy gold bars
Customers at luxury department store Harrods can now buy "off the shelf" gold bars worth more than a quarter of a million pounds.
While many are crippled by the recession, the Knightsbridge institution is hoping to cater for a rising demand among wealthy investors.
As prices reach record levels, Harrods said it linked up with Swiss refiner Produits Artistiques Metaux Precieux (Pamp) to establish London's first "well-recognised name" to serve the market. (PA)
Dressing down
A woman hoaxer in Ohio caused a near-riot at a clothing store after announcing she had won the lottery and would pay for everyone's purchases.
The woman arrived in a limousine and by the time police got there 500 people were inside with 1,000 others queueing.
After the staff discovered the woman had no money, customers grabbed clothes without paying. She was arrested and sent for mental health checks. (PA)